


Knife's Edge

by EvilMuffins



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/M, Knives, Weird Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-25 16:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12535788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: She hadn’t needed to do it, but her hands moved on their own, clockwork wound by years of bad experience. The crash of glass going to pieces had been so satisfying.---Tsumiki falls down again, but someone is there to help in his own way.





	Knife's Edge

**Author's Note:**

> I was supposed to have this done on the 27th as a birthday gift to myself, but apparently even being another year older has not taught me how to meet deadlines!!
> 
> Everyone should totally check out [this Komamiki art](http://mapsi0dyne.tumblr.com/post/166850200874/call-out-post-tumblr-user-evil-muffins-is-a) my amazing and talented friend did for my bday

Had it been an accident? Tsumiki couldn’t be quite sure anymore, her head humming pleasantly through the dull ache where it had hit the ground, making it hard to hear herself think. Although, it _had_ happened while no one else was around. Generally, when her feet moved on their own, deciding to leap out from underneath her, there were others around, people laughing, or chatting, or arguing among themselves, in their own little shinning bubbles, threatening to float far away from her. She had to pop them. Legs flailing in the air, panties exposed, the bubble would dissolve as eyes fell on her, the shine fading into the monochrome that her presence brought into their world.

Either way, the fact of the matter was that Tsumiki was stuck.

She had gone to the storage closet in search of a mop and bucket in order to clean up the medicine bottle she had smashed earlier when Komaeda had come into the pharmacy with a cut on his hand. He had been picking up shells on the beach in order to pass the time, or so he said, however one had come with an unexpectedly jagged edge.

He had given her his undivided attention, praising her skill as she cleaned the wound, smiling through the sting of the antiseptic as if she were only kissing the wound instead.

She hadn’t needed to do it, but her hands moved on their own, clockwork wound by years of bad experience. The crash of glass going to pieces had been so satisfying.

Komaeda had insisted on helping to pick up the pieces, however Tsumiki insisted that she didn’t want him to hurt himself further.

Upon reaching the storage room, however, Tsumiki had stumbled over something, crashing into a shelving unit. One thing led another, and now she lay on the cold cement flooring, tangled up in a box full of cables that had toppled onto her.

Almost immediately, she had resigned herself to the idea that no one was coming to get her. If even if someone did notice, they’d be glad to be rid of her. And so Tsumiki did her best to pass the time until her certain demise by brainstorming what she might have said to anyone who had bothered coming to her aid. Coming up with discussion topics was something she often did during her free time, although she never wrote them down, resulting in her most times forgetting everything by the time someone did bother speaking with her.

“Tsumiki-san?” came the voice of Komaeda. “Are you in here?”

Of course he would be the one to find her, of all people. It must be the bad part of his luck cycle hard at work, she thought.

Tsumiki considered remaining silent for a moment. She was in the back and out of sight after all. She could have saved him from wasting his time on her.

“B-back here!” she peeped.

The desire for him to see her like this won out. He would pay her attention as he helped her up, making sure that she was okay. For someone so horrifying during the trial, he was terribly kind to her outside of it.

She hated it.

She wanted more.

“Geez, are you okay?” he asked, kneeling beside her.

“I-I’m fine, really! Just a little stuck…” She wriggled against the cables to prove her point.

Komaeda began to extend a hand toward her, before hesitating. “May I? I know you already had the burden of touching me earlier, but unfortunately, you’re going to have to bear with it again so I can untie you.”

“If it isn’t too much trouble… I’m so sorry to make you go out of your way like this!”

Gingerly, he began to pluck at the cords, twined together like so many lies, trying to make sense of where one began and the other ended.

His fingers were warm and gentle where they brushed over the exposed flesh of her thigh, leading her to nearly wish that her other one hadn’t been wrapped tightly underneath a bandage. When was the last time someone had touched her, without the intention to hit or kick?

Unfortunately, Komaeda seemed to mistake her expression for discomfort. He dropped a hand to his pocket, pulling out a multi-tool instead. “This might speed things up a little…but…” He tapped the tool to his chin, as if reconsidering the idea.

Tsumiki shook her head, which was something of a feat what with the way her cheek still rested flat against the floor. “I’m very good at staying still! I wouldn’t have made a very good target otherwise…”

“The goal here is to _not_ hurt you, though,” Komaeda said, extending the tool’s modest blade.

“P-please go ahead…” Although she didn’t entirely  mind the situation, it really wouldn’t have been fair of her to waste any more of his time, she thought. “You really don’t need to worry about hurting me or not…”

“Oh no, it’s not that,” he began pulling on a bit of the cord so that it became taut. “I just don’t want to make you more uncomfortable than you already are. I mean, _I_ trust in my luck, but I’m certain that you’d worry about me slipping up anyway. I mean, it’s not like I’ve shown myself to be really capable of anything useful since we arrived here…”

Tsumiki pursed her lips as the cool steel of the blade’s dull side grazed her thigh, the sharp edge sawing against the cord until the first bit finally fell away. A sigh she hadn’t realised that she had been holding was left to escape.

“Better?” Komaeda asked as Tsumiki experimentally wriggled her legs, before nodding. “You really don’t have to hold your breath, you know- I won’t slip up.”

Although her legs had been freed, somehow her entire torso remained firmly ensnared.

“It seems like the worst of it is, er, right there,” he gestured vaguely toward her chest with the point of the knife. “If I can get that knot undone, the whole rest should come along with it.”

For a boy who looked so frail, his hands were surprisingly steady, Tsumiki thought. She couldn’t help but wonder what might happen if he were to falter.

Suddenly, the floor seemed terribly dusty.

“ _Ha-choo!”_

“Oh crap- Tsumiki-san, are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

Sure enough, Tsumiki’s sneeze had been enough to jerk her entire body, the blade slicing neatly through both apron and blouse, exposing an edge of lace, dyed by a welling red line.

“I’m fine! It’s nothing...really. I’m so sorry to sneeze at a time like this… Please, feel free to shove carrots up my nose at dinner!”

“No, no! It’s my fault for being careless!” Komaeda apologised, fumbling in his coat pockets for something, before coming up empty handed. “I should have just gone to find Hinata-kun right away. I’m sure he’d have been much better help. At least he might have had tissues or a hankie or something…”

“Oh! Um, in my apron pocket!” Tsumiki offered. “I keep some gauze squares, just in case…”

Although he reached in carefully, Tsumiki could still feel the ghost of his touch on her upper leg through the cloth.

Gently, he patted the gauze to her soft chest, staunching the small cut. Once finished, Komaeda stood.

“W-where are you going?” Tsumiki asked, dismayed. Was he planning to leave her with her arms still bound?

“To get Hinata-kun. If I stay, I’ll just hurt you again. It was a really bad idea for me to try and help-“

“Please!” Tsumiki interrupted, surprising both herself and her would-be savior. “P-please don’t go…”

As Tsumiki pleaded, her eyes fell upon the bandage around Komaeda’s hand. Her own cut had been so small, certainly there was no way that her own blood had stained it like that. “Y-your wound opened back up!”

“Oh?” Komaeda lifted his hand to inspect it. “I guess gripping the tool so tightly might’ve done it. Oh well!”

“N-not ‘oh well’!” Tsumiki squirmed her arms against the remaining cord. “If you could finish cutting me free, I’ll change your bandage again. I mean, you don’t have to if it hurts too much, of course, but-“

“Doesn’t hurt at all!” Komaeda announced proudly, moving his fingers in the air in demonstration, as if playing an unseen piano.

Again, Tsumiki held her breath, muscles tense as the cord was pulled tighter in order for Komaeda to work his fingers up under it, pulling it enough to fit the knife under, his other hand bracing on her shoulder as he sawed away. Cracking her eyes open just a slit, Tsumiki was struck by the look of concentration on his face, eyes narrowed and lips set into a line. No one had focused that intently on her unless they were angry at her in a very long time.

Suddenly, the tension loosened, the rest of her bindings slipping away to the floor as Komaeda offered a hand, helping her up, although wincing when she took it.

“Let me fix that for you!” Tsumiki cried, hand jamming into her other pocket to produce a neat white roll.

“You really don’t need to do this for me,” Komaeda said, as Tsumiki began to remove the soiled bandage. “If it falls off, I still have another one!” he waved his left hand.

“Please don’t…don’t talk like that…” It was the least she could do to repay him for helping her, she thought. …or maybe not...

Still holding his hand in her’s, Tsumiki raised it to her lips, pressing a kiss to his finger tips.

Although his eyes grew wide in bewilderment, Komaeda made no move to pull away.

“T-thank you, for helping me…”

“You’re very welcome, but really, it was no problem.”

“I’ll-I'll be going then. I wouldn’t want to waste any more of your valuable time!” With that, Tsumiki turned to leave, only to stop short at the feeling of something warm being draped over her shoulders.

“I can’t let you go out there like that, after the way I ruined your blouse, I mean. Please, wear this until you get back your room.”

Although she wouldn’t have minded being seen like she was, Tsumiki pulled the jacket tightly around herself, already wondering when he would stop by to get it back.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ...This was meant to be smut during the planning stages, but I'm old and tired. I promise there will be smut one of these days.
> 
> Is Tsu wearing Ko's coat overdone? Yes. Will that ever stop me? No.


End file.
